After Mr. Troll* locked me in the room for a week and beat me, he took me on a tour of the house, under one set of stairs he showed me a closet. His exact words were “This closet is a safe space for storage.” The closet was “safe.” I would be safe if I was in the closet. I could hide in there in pain and anger and be safe. I had hid under the bed in Alaska but it wasn’t safe because Mrs. Troll* pulled me out. Then he started telling me that no one else would ever love me because I was bad, it isn’t safe outside because other people will hurt you if they knew how bad you are, and no one else wants you. Out of his home was not safe according to him but suddenly the closet was. While we lived in that house I ran into the closet a lot to be “safe.”

A few days after the closet I realized that I could not find my dolphin toy! Or anything else in the box she had packed it in. When I became frantic, she “claimed” that the movers must have lost the box. I was devastated. However, I overheard them talking about my dolphin toy and me and how attached to it I was. He told her she did the right thing by leaving it behind because if how much it hurt me. It would teach me not to get so attached to anything. She put my toy in a box that she left behind on purpose. I was crushed by their cruelty and ran into the closet to have my outburst.

A few days later Princess* bothered me with one of her dolls, “This is mine and you can’t play with her. You don’t have one.” I was crying and furious. Then Mr. Troll beat me, yelling at me I was making too much noise and that my anger was bad. In the closet, I tried to cry without making any noise. I started hitting myself hard on my thighs for several minutes at a time to try to stop feeling my anger at the pain he inflicted.

*Not their real names (how unfortunate he didn’t come labeled).

When we got into the house, Mr. Troll* grabbed me by the arm, leaving a huge bruise on an already bruised arm, and hauled me to an empty room and threw me down, causing more pain. He started yelling about how bad I was for trying to run away. He claimed he needed to punish me for being bad. He started beating me: hitting and shaking me. I tried fighting back, hitting and kicking. In the fight, I wet myself as I sometimes did when he beat me. He left me locked alone in the room with no food, no water, and no bathroom. I was furious. I had no other clothes to change into or anything else. It was an empty room with no lights, windows, or furniture, just darkness.

After several hours he came back and attacked me again, hitting, shaking, and pinching me. He gave me some water but yelled at me all over again about how bad I was. He told me that parents need to discipline their children, especially the bad ones. He kept repeating “your runaway attempt was because you're bad and you’re not going to change.” He still didn’t feed me anything. When I tried to sleep, he came in making a lot of noise, yelling at me to wake up and banging two pans together. He shook and hit me again. Bruises forming on bruises and I hated him for what he was doing.

Mrs. Troll* was nowhere to be seen or heard, and the same thing for the other three children. I have no idea where they were during any of this. The only food he fed me was poisoned, causing me to go into a hyper-panic mode in an already bad situation. He violently shook and hit me again, yelling at me that my anger was bad and that I had to hold in my anger. The angrier I became, he was yelling, the worse I was and the only thing I could do was hold the anger inside and try to shut it down. He brought the food sporadically, not enough to keep me from starving. Once, during a poisoned panic attack, he told me I was bad for talking to the woman at the airport and especially for talking about “The Family.” This reflected badly on “The Family” (him) and I should keep my mouth shut. Over the next few days there was more hitting, shaking, pinching, and poisoning as he kept me locked in the room.

After about a week, no shower or bathroom, starved, sleep-deprived, and soiled, he pulled me out of the room, took me into the bathroom to give me a bath to clean me up, running and rubbing his hands over my body (revolting, disgusting!). He put clean pajamas on me and took me to the kitchen to feed me, still not feeding me enough to keep from starving. After that he took me into the master bedroom and put me down on his bed, telling me to go ahead and sleep for as long as I could. I was sick, weak and dizzy with a wrenched arm. I probably should have seen a doctor. The entire time I was locked in the dark room I did not see or hear Mrs. Troll. I next saw her when I woke up in their bed, in pain and starving, still very weak. She was in the room busy-bodying, putting clothes away when I woke up. She saw I was awake and told me “it’s all your fault for acting up in the airport.” She looked nervous and kept her distance from me. She finished putting away the clothes and left the room. I got up after probably about an hour and left the room also.

*Not their real names (who would go by these anyway?)

Not long after I recovered from “chicken pox,” Mr. Troll* received word that a position was open for him in Michigan. It would be a promotion and an escape from Alaska. He became excited about the chance to get out of Alaska and Mrs. Troll* became even more excited. It didn’t stop him form hitting me during this time and telling me I was bad.

I wanted to take my dolphin toy on the plane with me but Mrs. Troll insisted on packing it away for the move. I noticed that everything else was packed with things that belonged together except for this one box. It was not a last minute box but Mrs. Troll packed it with things that she didn’t like: some children’s clothes that they hadn’t bought, some cooking dishes, a few kids’ books, and some gardening tools. I cried about not being able to carry my dolphin toy, especially since Princess* carried one of her dolls with her.

The day came that we went to the airport. At the airport, I had to get away from the Trolls, away from the pain they were causing me. I walked away from them. I found another woman dressed all in black and told her “My mommy’s in Ohio. Please help.” She looked horrified that there was a child wandering loose and started to ask me questions: “What is your mommy’s name? Where in Ohio is she? How did you get here?” As she was asking, an airport attendant, maybe a security guard, came up calling my name. I responded to my name being called and he told me “Your family is worried about you. I’ll take you back to them.” I didn’t want to go with him, trying to hold onto this woman. She told me I should go back to my family, they were worried about where there daughter is. He mostly dragged me back over to the Trolls, and I began crying and screaming when I saw him. First Born*, Princess, and Youngest* were there and quiet, anchored to the Trolls.

The guard asked Mr. Troll “Is this your child?” Mr. Troll said yes and knelt down to me putting his hands too tightly on my shoulders, hurting me as the guard stood right there. He told me “We were getting very worried about what had happened to you.” I was sure he was going to beat me right there. I saw the coldness and anger in his eyes that meant he was going to beat me. When the guard told him I had told the other woman my mommy’s in Ohio, Mr. Troll told him “She has a very active imagination and is always making up stories and lies.” He got me alone into a side room, yelling and screaming at me that I had been bad. He shook me violently and told me this isn’t the end of it. The rest of the time until we got onto the plane, he had a tight grip on my arm, giving me bruises before we left. I knew he was going to beat me later. We got on the small plane that took us to the Lower 48. We drove across the country I think from Washington state to Michigan. I tried to make myself as unnoticeable as possible during the very tense ride, he was still yelling about how bad I was and shaking me often. I hated being in the car with him, didn’t want to go into the motels at night, and balked at going into the new house in Michigan.

*Not there real names (too good to be true if they really were)

Several incidents occurred in Alaska that stood apart from everything else. In the middle of a blizzard one year, Mr. Troll* ran out of cigarettes. He turned to Mrs. Troll* and told her to run out and pick up a pack for him. She told him “Get your own damn cigarettes.” She refused to go and he wasn’t going to brave the storm to get them for himself. He quit cold turkey but we found it impossible to live with him while he went through withdrawal even more edgy and angry than usual. He beat me more severely (he couldn’t really beat me more often).

One day Mr. Troll came home from work in the middle of the day. He dug around in his closet and came out with a gun, the first time I had ever seen it. He explained that a bear wandered too close to the work site and he had to do something about it. He had a .22 caliber pistol that he took to shoot a bear! After a few days he came home with the bearskin. His co-workers and he had given the bear to a Native American group who had prepared the bear: skinned, gutted, etc. Mr. Troll claimed the skin as he said he had killed it. The bear only had one bullet hole in it and it wasn’t from a .22.

One time we went to a Native American art exhibit, Mrs. Troll started to have some kind of problem. She became edgier and angrier the longer we stayed at the exhibit. I didn’t understand why because I thought the exhibit was fascinating. We knew, however, not to say anything to her when she had become “monster.” This pattern repeated itself every time we went to an art exhibit.

Some time before we went to the dog sled races, Mr. Troll had told First Born* that dogs can tell when a child is bad and they will attack those children. Mr. Troll also had told First Born that he was bad, not as often as he told me but frequently enough. The day of the dog sled races First Born did not want to go, thinking that all of the dogs would attack him.

*Not their real names (now or ever)

By this time First Born*, Princess*, and I had learned that there was “mother” and there was “monster” and how to recognize when Mrs. Troll* was “monster.” Her energy shifts when she shifts from one to the other and it is noticeable, like the energy shift before a storm hits. The change is also visible: her face distorts and twists, her posture becomes threatening, and even her voice changes, becoming shriller and shrieking, louder. We tried to hide from her when she was “monster” because she raged and shook us, especially me and I didn’t want to be hurt by her anymore. I hated her. When she couldn’t find us, she raged and threw dishes, smashing them. It could be hours before the episodes passed. She was like this the entire eighteen years I lived with them.

Mrs. Troll insisted First Born go to kindergarten. She said he needed to be among children his own age. Mr. Troll resisted, angry at her and determined that “his kids” were not going to school. They yelled and argued for several weeks and she threatened him (I don’t know exactly with what) before he finally gave in. I thought my turn for school couldn’t come soon enough because First Born got to leave the house for several hours at a time without Mr. or Mrs. Troll. The spring I was four years old, First Born came home from school with chicken pox and promptly gave it to Princess and me. I was miserable from the sickness. Mrs. Troll took care of First Born and Princess, feeding them and putting calamine lotion on their spots, but she ignored me. She told me that the chicken pox was my fault for being bad and that everyone blamed and hated me for it. I was furious. I complained to Mr. Troll* that she was taking care of them and not me. He didn’t respond to me. Soon after he told her, she had another one of her fits and, enraged, flew into the bedroom we as children all shared, shrieking and yelling all kinds of things about how bad I was, what was wrong with me, and I was bad for complaining. She shouted it was hard to be a good mother to a child who is this bad. Then she started hitting and shaking me, repeatedly hitting my head on the wall behind the bed. Although I tried to fight back and protect myself, I was too weak to do much. While she attacked me, I remember hearing Princess crying. I have no memory of Mrs. Troll stopping. I heard a loud popping noise and suddenly felt numb from the neck down. I believe she broke my neck. I passed out from a hard blow to the back of my head which also caused a bad concussion. I know I was very already weakened from the starvation and beatings and now the illness and concussion. I remember going down a long tunnel and seeing a bright white light and remember seeing a small, beautiful woman who told me I had to go back. I didn’t want to go back to the Trolls’ house.

I passed in and out of consciousness over a period of time (I’m not sure how long) and was not able to move when I was conscious. Mrs. Troll told me during a point of consciousness the reason it was so bad for me and not the others is because I was bad. I had curious pricklings in my hands and feet for a while even though my body seemed numb. At some point I was strapped to the bed to limit my movements. I remember her feeding me a few times with a baby bottle. She used diapers on me in an attempt to keep me and the bed clean. She seemed more concerned with the bed than me. At one point when I was conscious, First Born came over to my bed, very quietly and showed me the bruises on his arms and told me, in hushed tones, we’re not supposed to talk about this. I was furious about his bruises. I heard her telling Mr. Troll that I was “recovering” much more slowly than the other two. “In fact,” she said “she might not recover.” Mr. Troll came in to see me on a few occasions. He told me it was my fault for making her look like she was a bad mother. I told him “I hate her.” He responded I was bad and bad children are not loved and are not lovable but that I had to love Mrs. Troll because “she’s your mother”. (I still did not love her.) It took me several months to recover from the paralysis. Never, at any point, did I receive any medical attention.